Lindy Elkins-Tanton

Lindy Elkins-Tanton is a world-renowned planetary scientist and member of the National Academy of Sciences. She is the Principal Investigator of NASA’s Psyche mission, and Vice President for the Interplanetary Initiative at Arizona State University, one of the top Earth and planetary science research schools in the United States. Among her major original research achievements are the discovery that the Siberian flood basalts caused the end-Permian extinction, the revelation that rocky planets are born wet, and the concept of “drip volcanism.” Asteroid (8252) Elkins-Tanton is named for her.